A/N: Written for FemFeb this year. Yet another new ship for me! I know these two have approximately nothing to do with each other. And are only tenuously in the same continuity. But, listen. Come on. They're sharpshooters on opposite sides whose names both end in "racer". That's grounds for a foemance in my book. Might do more with this in the future, dunno yet.
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Nightracer keeps her focus on the horizon even as she hears laughter behind her, the Decepticons she's escorting making play of their work. In her peripheral, she notices one of them– one of endless garish tetrajets she can never be bothered to tell apart– is in the open exactly as she'd instructed him not to be.
Someone must speak up, because that same jet scoffs and says, "Oh, ignore her– probably expects to see Megatron."
The laughter starts up again, muffled behind hands that ought to be storing away energon. She shifts behind the cover she'd claimed, just enough that the laughter comes to a hiccuping stop. The commentary coloring the evening is set to a mumble, easy to ignore among the sounds of work getting done so she doesn't have to bear mockery for believing, knowing, that their Lord is still out there somewhere.
"Hey," comes Shakar's voice from knee-level, and she spares her nervous partner a glance. "We okay?"
"We are," Nightracer murmurs, inclining her head toward the pillar she's made herself comfortable against. She hesitates, picking over her next choice of words. Her trigger finger has been itching since the moment before she flipped into root mode to take up guard. She has a feeling and nothing more. Nightracer doesn't allow herself the luxury of many feelings; those she has, she trusts.
Before she can condense all of this into so much as a brush-off, a flicker of a shadow against the moon trips her internal alarm. Her first shot is off before she's finished dismissing the idea of shouting a warning that would come too late. It echoes in the distance, disappointment and anticipation sharp in her circuits when she feels, knows, that she's missed.
From behind, there's a small explosion, a chorus of swearing and the clattering clang of that fool jet hitting the ground; she'd been too late to prevent her enemy from firing. The rest of the party scatters for the cover she'd warned them to take as she transforms and charges into the open with Shakar's shout echoing wordless through her processor. She swerves around a volley of fire, then another, then transforms again to dive behind a jagged outcropping as debris goes up at her heels right where she knew that it would.
So, she thinks, you're still out there too. She whips up and returns fire; the light of her blasts falls on her quarry darting for better cover, already lining up another shot. If Nightracer had a mouth, she'd smile.
Another, more substantial, explosion from behind brings her out of her thoughts. Ducking back, she spins and sees the party picking themselves up as the storage tower crumbles and a bright red Autobot flatbed streaks away loaded with energon cubes, two more Autobots clinging to the sides to lay down cover fire behind them. They're quickly lost in the smoke.
The realization that she'd been lured hits Nightracer like a physical blow, soothed only slightly when she sees where Shakar is hidden, swearing but unharmed. A laugh bubbles across the terrain, soon followed by a gunning engine. Nightracer whips around in time to see her quarry transform before fleeing behind the horizon.
Well.
The other Decepticons are already up and getting after the flatbed and Nightracer decides to leave them to it. When she transforms to race into the night, it's to go after that flash of white and turquoises, leaving Shakar with an order to call in a report to Shockwave and stay safe. Her opposite number was so very keen for her attention? She has it.